1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to the field of music. More particularly, the invention pertains to the employment of musical instruments and to a novel stand to hold a musical instrument in a position for later use during a performance.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the playing of musical instruments, whether in a band, an orchestra, or a "combo", the fact that one musician may play more than one instrument during the performance requires him or her to temporarily set one or more instruments aside while playing another. While one may merely lay a musical instrument on the floor beside his or her feet as one way of doing it, the better and more accepted procedure is to employ a stand on which to temporarily store the instrument or instruments. There are some stands commercially available for this purpose.
When dealing with certain instruments, such as stringed instruments like a guitar or violin, care must be taken not to place the instrument in such a position where the neck of the instrument will become warped. The strings on guitars and violins are tightly drawn along the neck, between the body and the tuning peg board. This places the slender neck of the instrument under compression and, because all the strings are located on one side of the neck, also places a substantial bending moment about the neck tending to warp the neck in a "C" shape. Should the temporarily storage of the instrument include support for the body and the tuning peg board, the loss of weight of the body allows the strings to place even more stress on the neck and cause warping of the neck and loss of tuning in the instrument.
Further, many commercially available musical instrument stands are rather complex and cumbersome. The complexity requires the use of tools and other instruments to set up the stand thus requiring the musician to haul the tools about along with his or her instruments. Extra tools means extra bulk and weight making one's movement from performance to performance more time-consuming and frustrating. Losing a tool needed to assemble the stand means that the stand may not be assemblable so that it becomes useless as an aid to the musician.
As the complexity of the stand increases, more attention must be turned to setting up the stand and taking it down. With the tasks of a musician being what they are, working in a noisy, smoke-filled rooms, usually full of rude persons, beer drinkers and the like, the musician gets very tired at the end of his or her performance and is in no condition to dismantle a complex piece of machinery that must be packed away in its own special crate and hauled to the next location.
For instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,786, there is shown a very complex musical stand that has numerous parts requiring adjusting and, after set-up, holds the instrument at an angle both at the bottom of the body and by the tuning peg board. Thus the instrument is supported in a way that encourages warping of the neck and places the instrument at an angle that requires careful lifting for later use. U.S. Pat. No. 4,691,610 shows a guitar stand having a plurality of parts that are assembled with pins, bolts, thumb screws and other small parts that are easily dropped on a stage to roll over to a hole in the floor and drop through thus placing the part out of reach and use by the owner of the stand. U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,796 discloses a musical instrument stand having widely spaced legs that are not foldable so that the entire stand must be carried separate and apart from the musical instrument thus adding a burden to the musician. U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,866 discloses a music stand that can only be used along with a large amplifier of a certain size and shape on which the stand is mechanically bolted. Such a device finds limited use in certain areas but no use where large amplifiers are not used. U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,497 shows a bulky musical instrument stand where the guitar or other instrument is supported both from the top and from the bottom and promotes the warping of the neck of the instrument as previously mentioned. U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,756 discloses an adjustable article stand where a guitar is supported both at the tuning peg board and the body to, again, encourage warping of the neck. The unit is bulky and, even though foldable, requires substantial adjustment before use. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,852,250 discloses a foldable instrument stand that, while hanging the instrument from the top thereof, is rather long and must be carried in one piece, possibly in a trunk or other long carrier. Accordingly, there remains a need for a portable music stand that provides for hanging of a musical instrument therein and that may be dismantled into small enough pieces that they can be carried in a music case, possibly along with the instrument, and that requires no particular tools for setting up or taking down.